She Dreamed
by SerenLyall
Summary: Ever since she was a child, Leia Organa had dreamed. Leia Organa had dreamed, and her father had feared.


**Disclaimer:** Star Wars and all characters and story events there related to belong to George Lucas and appropriate parties. No money was made from the writing of this.

**Rating/Warnings:** K; none.

**Notes:** I have done little productive today, and honestly I should be doing philosophy reading right now. Ah well. Writing this was infinitely more fun than reading John Stuart Mill's views on ethics. I hope you enjoy reading _this _as much as I'm _not_ going to enjoy reading Mill. Remember, reviews are love.

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><p>She dreamed of a boy standing with arms outstretched, with laughter in his blue eyes and joy on his lips.<p>

_He finds her frantic and close to tears, turning in hopeless, desperate circles in the midst of the hangar bay—how a three-year-old even managed to find her way down here, Bail can only guess. He kneels down, catching her hands gently, and turning her toward him. But when he asks her what's wrong, she can do nothing but shriek and wrench away from him, staggering a tottering, stumbling step away before screaming again and falling to her knees, head buried beneath her crossed arms. When he moves closer, reaching out a tentative hand to soothingly rub her back, he can only just make out her voice whisper in a foreign tongue—and though it has been years since he last heard the language, he can just make out a broken, "Where is he?"_

_ When she wakes the next morning, confused and thirsty and cradled in her father's lap, Bail realizes that she doesn't remember anything from the night before. And he breathes a sigh of relief._

She dreamed of flame and sulfur, and of burning.

_She stands far back from the fire in the hearth, eyeing it with distrust, though she is twelve and far beyond fearing such a thing as flame. "Leia?" he asks, looking up worriedly from the leather-bound book he holds in his hands—a parchment book is a rarity and a luxury, but it is one symbol of wealth that Bail indulges in. "Are you well?"_

_ "It is not to be trusted," she whispers, and her voice is hoarse and scratched, as if from smoke. Or from screaming._

_ "What is not to be trusted?" Bail asks gently, a soft frown creasing his brows._

_ And Leia looks up and meets his gaze, and her eyes are screaming with the agony of betrayal and despair. "The fire," she answers him, and her voice now is in that strange, singing lilt that Bail has learned to dread. "It turns on itself without a thought, devouring and consuming. Brother slays brother, and the darkness always wins."_

_ Then she shakes her head, and grins a little. "Then again," she laughs, and the voice is his daughter's once more, "perhaps it's just fire."_

She dreamed of a ship—of a thousand ships of a thousand shapes and hues. Some burned, some broke, and some grew old and withered. But only one remained, solid even as it fractured and splintered, safe even as it shuddered.

_There are times when Bail despairs: when she insists on flying that damnable speeder; when she somehow—accidentally, she swears—fixes the automated locking mechanism on his cabin door, even after three different mechanics on the _Tantive IV _have looked at it and given it up as a lost cause, its only hope to be replaced as soon as they make port; when her eyes flash and her tongue escapes her, and it's all Bail can do to simply pray to the goddess that Leia doesn't accidentally kill someone in her anger. There are times when Bail despairs that Leia is too much like her father. _

_But he is never more terrified than the day she is thirteen and she stands in the Senate hangar on Coruscant, running her hands along the hull of an old Corellian freighter docked to deliver cargo. Even he can practically feel the vibrancy of Life—of the Force—humming around her. She turns to tell him, "I dreamed of a ship like this once. It flew through the stars, and not even the Darkness could claim the ship as his." And then she stiffens, turns away from him, and Bail sees none other than Vader standing a few paces away—none other than the broken man who once was Anakin, who once had loved ships so very much, and who once would have all but sung with joy at seeing his daughter so lovingly brush a hand against even an old, broken freighter._

_And Bail fears that all is lost._

_But Vader merely bows slightly and says, "Your eye for ships is surprising, Your Highness." And then he turns to Bail, and with a hand he summons the elder Organa to his side. Bail tries not to allow his relief to bleed through into his thoughts, where Vader may be able to feel it, and he must succeed, for Vader makes no comment as Bail sends Leia back to his study to wait for him until he has finished with the day's meetings._

She dreamed of fire and brimstone, and of ash that swallowed the world.

_She's eight, and Bail holds her close to his chest as she sobs uncontrollably. "It's all going to end," she whispers through her tears, arms wrapped so tightly around his neck that he can barely breathe. But he doesn't care. "It's all going to burn, and I can't do anything about it." And Bail can do nothing but hold her close, murmuring pointless words of nothing—nothing, because what can he say that will take away her fear, and pointless because, in some deep, dark corner of his heart, he's known since she was two years old and first asked about the world with two suns and an ocean of sand that, in another day and another age, she would have been called a Prophetess._

But most of all, she dreamed of that boy with blue eyes and blond hair.

Most of all, she dreamed of being whole.


End file.
